Laura L. Runge – författare

During the eighteenth century, British critics applied terms of gender to literature according to the belief that masculine values represented the best literature and feminine terms signified less important works or authors. Laura Runge contends however that the meaning of gendered terms like 'manly' or 'effeminate' changes over time, and that the language of eighteenth-century criticism cannot be fully understood without careful analysis of the gendered language of the era. She examines conventions in various fields of critical language - Dryden's prose, the early novel, criticism by women, and the developing aesthetic - to show how gendered epistemology shaped critical 'truths'. Her exploration of critical commonplaces, such as regarding the heroic and the sublime as masculine modes and the novel as a feminine genre, addresses issues central to eighteenth-century studies.

During the eighteenth century, British critics applied terms of gender to literature according to the belief that masculine values represented the best literature and feminine terms signified less important works or authors. Laura Runge contends however that the meaning of gendered terms like 'manly' or 'effeminate' changes over time, and that the language of eighteenth-century criticism cannot be fully understood without careful analysis of the gendered language of the era. She examines conventions in various fields of critical language - Dryden's prose, the early novel, criticism by women, and the developing aesthetic - to show how gendered epistemology shaped critical 'truths'. Her exploration of critical commonplaces, such as regarding the heroic and the sublime as masculine modes and the novel as a feminine genre, addresses issues central to eighteenth-century studies.

The querelle des femmes was a debate over the condition of women in society lasting four centuries and characteristically involved charges against female vice, folly, corruption, incontinence and lasciviousness, countered by pro-women defences and lists of exemplary women. The texts in these two volumes range from broadside parliamentary petitions to verse satire, from sermons to philosophical essays, from political diatribes to marital advice. The defences all respond to attacks on women, and although none argues for women's citizenship or social equality, many claim an original or spiritual equality, and blame custom and male corruption for female subjection. The volumes are arranged into five sections covering Politics, Preaching and Silence, Sexuality, Marriage and Two Contrapuntal Defences.

The querelle des femmes was a debate over the condition of women in society lasting four centuries and characteristically involved charges against female vice, folly, corruption, incontinence and lasciviousness, countered by pro-women defences and lists of exemplary women. The texts in these two volumes range from broadside parliamentary petitions to verse satire, from sermons to philosophical essays, from political diatribes to marital advice. The defences all respond to attacks on women, and although none argues for women's citizenship or social equality, many claim an original or spiritual equality, and blame custom and male corruption for female subjection. The volumes are arranged into five sections covering Politics, Preaching and Silence, Sexuality, Marriage and Two Contrapuntal Defences.

Aphra Behn (1640–1689), prolific and popular playwright, poet, novelist, translator, has a fascinating and extensive corpus of literature that plays a key role in literary history. Quantitative Literary Analysis of the Works of Aphra Behn: Words of Passion offers what no book has done to date, an analysis of all Behn’s literary output. It examines the author’s use of words in terms of frequencies and distributions and stacks the words in context to read Behn’s word usage synchronically. Using this experimental method, the book brings digital humanities into literary criticism, to enhance our understanding and appreciation of literature beyond what is possible in diachronic reading and scholarship less supported by digital means. The empirical approach works in collaboration with existing scholarship to understand Behn’s distinct language of love and extreme passions across her genres.